clairebearnz
Well-Known Member
I've been living in the South Island for about 18 months now, but haven't managed to take Tally, my nearly 21 year old pony-type, out to any as I evented my young horse last winter. However, this changed as baby horse had been acting like an idiot (more on this later!) so Tally got promoted to #1 horse and tackled Rangiora ODE over Queen's Birthday weekend. We had been competing at Training (95cm) but went down to 80cm as he hadn't been out eventing in so long.
Dressage was a bit of an embarrassing disaster. Tally took great offence at doing dressage on frozen ground when the temperature hovered at about -3, in full view of the cross country course. Remarkably, we were not last after the dressage, but we did receive a 2 and "serious resistance" for Tally's slip-rodeo buck-giraffe change of rein in trot. I then walked the cross country. The water jump looked like this:
It was still frozen. Questioning my sanity (and whether Tally would continue his gentlemanly ways or simply buck me off into the water), I headed to the show jumping where Tally took control and skipped around for a hilariously enthusiastic clear round. I'm fairly certain he'd learnt the course as I don't think I was steering. There wasn't much on the XC that worried me as it was a nice bold gallopy course. The two things I was a bit iffy on were the trakhener as a) Fready had quite literally climbed it the year before, and b) Tally had dumped me in one up north, and the bounce, as Tally had dumped me in one XC schooling the week before. However, there was an option at the bounce (a corner), and, as I found out later, an option for the trakhener.
Tally was bouncing like a pogo stick warming up for XC and shot out of the start box like he was fired from a cannon. He zoomed over everything, including taking a stride out and jumping the entire (a good 1.10m) height of the hedge. We jumped the corner instead of the bounce, shot straight into the water with great enthusiasm, and to my great surprise, straight over the trakehener without even looking at the ditch. He was home clear and full of running. My favourite part of the whole round was his little fluffy ears that did not move from their locked on position. He was absolutely delighted with his day out and....
Unfortunately, no photos of him actually going, so you'll have to make do with Tally XC schooling the other weekend.
Fready has regained his sanity after deciding that other horses are terrifying and he was going to lose the plot if ridden in the vicinity of them. We had a very tricky dressage warm-up at the last dressage competition I took him to so I scratched the second test and came home. However, I had his back done, and gave him a couple of weeks off. He is better but still seems to think that horses around him are really quite scary.
I took him out to McLeans Island at the weekend for a bit of schooling:
Practising our shoulder-in
He is jumping well, however, and is slowly getting over his issues with ditches. I've taken to jumping him with spurs on and he's a lot better as I can combat his leftward drift while a whip makes him back off.
And we're hacking out again
Plans for the next couple of weeks include hunting and eventing (Tally) and dressage and more XC/SJ schooling (Fready) and sitting in a paddock getting fatter (Missy).
Dressage was a bit of an embarrassing disaster. Tally took great offence at doing dressage on frozen ground when the temperature hovered at about -3, in full view of the cross country course. Remarkably, we were not last after the dressage, but we did receive a 2 and "serious resistance" for Tally's slip-rodeo buck-giraffe change of rein in trot. I then walked the cross country. The water jump looked like this:
It was still frozen. Questioning my sanity (and whether Tally would continue his gentlemanly ways or simply buck me off into the water), I headed to the show jumping where Tally took control and skipped around for a hilariously enthusiastic clear round. I'm fairly certain he'd learnt the course as I don't think I was steering. There wasn't much on the XC that worried me as it was a nice bold gallopy course. The two things I was a bit iffy on were the trakhener as a) Fready had quite literally climbed it the year before, and b) Tally had dumped me in one up north, and the bounce, as Tally had dumped me in one XC schooling the week before. However, there was an option at the bounce (a corner), and, as I found out later, an option for the trakhener.
Tally was bouncing like a pogo stick warming up for XC and shot out of the start box like he was fired from a cannon. He zoomed over everything, including taking a stride out and jumping the entire (a good 1.10m) height of the hedge. We jumped the corner instead of the bounce, shot straight into the water with great enthusiasm, and to my great surprise, straight over the trakehener without even looking at the ditch. He was home clear and full of running. My favourite part of the whole round was his little fluffy ears that did not move from their locked on position. He was absolutely delighted with his day out and....
Unfortunately, no photos of him actually going, so you'll have to make do with Tally XC schooling the other weekend.
Fready has regained his sanity after deciding that other horses are terrifying and he was going to lose the plot if ridden in the vicinity of them. We had a very tricky dressage warm-up at the last dressage competition I took him to so I scratched the second test and came home. However, I had his back done, and gave him a couple of weeks off. He is better but still seems to think that horses around him are really quite scary.
I took him out to McLeans Island at the weekend for a bit of schooling:
Practising our shoulder-in
He is jumping well, however, and is slowly getting over his issues with ditches. I've taken to jumping him with spurs on and he's a lot better as I can combat his leftward drift while a whip makes him back off.
And we're hacking out again
Plans for the next couple of weeks include hunting and eventing (Tally) and dressage and more XC/SJ schooling (Fready) and sitting in a paddock getting fatter (Missy).
